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Roam: Chapter 02
Chapter 2 Character * [[2664 Ife Tusk|'Ife Tusk']] * [[1899 Odd Otibryal Juctor Qualens|'Odd Otibryal Juctor Qualens']] Locations * Gaegny Contents Ife Tusk Gaegny did not seem a large city: unwalled, its white stone buildings and their red rooves pressed against the shoreline by the imposing mountains like the stricken Kyraspans encircled at the Battle of the Mescan Delta. Ife cast his eyes over the tombs carved into the cliffs looming over the harbour, the oldest modest doorways and the newest facades of entire palaces for the dead. A temple, exhaling the dark smoke of an ongoing sacrifice, sat in judgement of the city from a promontory partway up the mountainside, its approach entirely mysterious to him down here. Even at this distance he could see that its stones were not arranged for their original purpose; had the walls been rebuilt following an earthquake or landslide, or even a pirate raid in the lawless years following the war? Or was it a case of the Roamans having repurposed the shrine to some local god as one of their own, no doubt Voriel, their god of voyages and trade, given the role of the city as a port? Ife shook his head, trying again to forget of ships and ports. His stomach splashed some fire into his throat to warn him away from such thoughts. He ran his eyes down the horizon high above him, from left to right, tamping down on the uprisings of his body with long, steady breaths. He wished that he had brought one of his brothers with him, if only to distract him at this moment with their usual games, though they had all been grown men for many years now. He imagined how Ise would have imagined the strategy to capture this town and its limited approaches. Even without walls the streets could likely be easily defended with stubborn phalanxes at chokepoints and mobile skirmishing missile troops and light cavalry disrupting from the flanks. Without detailed intelligence of the backstreets – intelligence which would no doubt evaporate with the first rush of blood at contact with the enemy – a land attack from further along the coast would likely become a demoralising grind. Ise would probably argue for an overwhelming show of force to try to avoid a battle through surrender, or perhaps even an audacious night-time raid, but he always overestimated the ease of coordinating and containing such actions. Ife would point out that the hundred plots to capture a city by guile were never recorded by historians, nor the anonymous deaths of the thwarted, unmourned plotters, while the one success spawned a hundred poems. Ife had no wish to be forgotten, but cared even less to be remembered in songs for foolish risks. If, for the sake of argument, a siege and naval blockade were out of the question due to time and resource pressures of the imagined, larger conflict, Ife would also caution his brother against a direct amphibious assault on the port. The civilian harbour had a narrow entrance, and was packed with wooden hulls of every size, leaving no disembarkation point to muster which could be easily defensible, and only the sloppiest of defenders would not have lines of soldiers and reserves drawn up to repel ships which did make it to the dock, especially with lookouts able to see ships from miles from the cliffs above. Even superior Naechisian sailors would find it difficult to manoeuvre at speed in the harbour, particularly as it began to fill with the vengeful wrecks of civilian craft which had been rammed to make room. As his ship approached to the steady rhythm of the drums below deck, Ife’s suspicions that the peninsula to their port side concealed a sheltered military harbour on its far side was confirmed by the regular masts peeking over the low walls of what appeared to be a palace. Ife frowned: the military harbour must be a more recent construction than the civilian one, as its natural throat between the coast and the peninsula was considerably easier to block up and domineer. Perhaps it had been built during the war in a hurry, before Roam had truly begun to appreciate the intricacies and subtleties of naval warfare that Naechis had had ingrained through centuries of hard-won expansion. But it was the palace that was the downfall of Gaegny, or would be were Ife to be tasked with its capture. A victory of pride and ego over good sense, its decorative walls only notionally defended by guard towers places more for effect than coverage, it would likely be captured by only a few dedicated boatloads of marines in a small assault from this side while a larger diversionary force bottled the Roaman fleet on the far side, or even without support in a sneak attack if Ise was so set on the idea. The walls encircled the entire peninsula, doubtless demarcating the extents of the private gardens or hunting grounds of its complacent occupant. Perhaps the governor would be captured and surrender the entire city to ensure his safety and that of his family, but even if not, the grounds would allow a large mustering field for Ife’s troops to form ranks (and defend the walls of their staging area, such as they were) as they were disgorged from their ships in relative safety, ready to attack the city from a direction from which its defenders were entirely unprepared. Forcing his opponent to adapt their tactics to his terms was already half the battle. Ife was considering how best to spring forth from the peninsula to the city as the ship rounded the breakwater of the harbour, the Roaman soldiers stationed upon it staring at the Samyrtian markings on its hull, and no doubt at him personally. He stared right back. It had been twenty years since he had last seen one of them, and his memories of the day that they had led his father away in chains had not overlooked a single detail, from their bronze helmets and curved, rectangular shields, to their short spears and desultory breastplates fixed by buckles, straps or strings, to the brutish hatred in their squinting eyes. Ife understood the calculating eyes of the Naechisian, and the ancient pride of the Samyrtian; the playful determination of the Mughannean inspired him – indeed, it ran in his blood. The ritualistic reverence of the Issycrian lowering his sarissa alongside his brothers resonated with the harmonies of the world itself. He even understood the essential fury of the Feor or the tribesman of Crylalt, closer to beast than man. But nothing in his life, neither in conversations with generals and ambassadors of every culture, nor in his unprejudiced reading of every thinker who had a mind to disgorge since letters were invented, nor in those battles when his mortality pressed closest upon him, and his survival was drawn only in instinct, sinew, and blood, nothing prepared him for the assured, arrogant spite of the Roaman gaze. They didn’t know that it was bluster – it was inconceivable that he, Ife Tusk, had any merits that each of them had not been born into tenfold, even as they invited him here out of fear. Fear of who he was, and how what he represented had shaken that certainty to its very core. To Ife’s eye, there was simply no room in the harbour for a fishing boat, let alone the royal galley that he had been furnished with by the Samyrtians for the journey from Kashtara. The quayside was suddenly abuzz with activity as locals and sailors began to yell out instructions to one another with no apparent regard for hierarchy or general comprehension – Ife caught snatches of Roaman, Issycrian of numerous dialects, Samyrtian, and other languages with which was unfamiliar with, predominantly a garbled sing-song Roaman-alike that he assumed was a local Neluntian language. As the galley twirled impatiently, wood creaked and ropes groaned against new, presumptuous exertions, and slowly – seemingly impossibly – a gap grew between two docked boats, their sides bristling with wooden poles to guide their new neighbour into its berth, the dimensions of which still beggared belief. Ife found a reliable handhold, aware with a grim certainty that what was about to occur was tantamount to a protracted, glancing double ramming attack, as if the Roamans had seen fit to welcome him to Scalify with a mock of the pivotal Battle of the Sycadine Stacks, or the catastrophic dismantling of the fleet attempting to break out at Naechym. His stomach, finally settled after a day’s crossing of the Inner Sea, braced for a final assault – he would not give the Roamans the satisfaction of seeing their hated guest emptying his empty guts over the side before a word had been uttered. The rippling clatter of hull on hull was nearly as terrible as the shuddering, arrhythmic rocking of the ship along its long axis as it was forced into its space. Ife, however, found himself distracted by the unflinching stare of a boy on the quayside, stood resolutely still as the dock around him swarmed with large-shouldered, sun-worn men, each pitching their advice or strength here and there to assist the docking operation. The boy was unmistakeably Roaman, wearing a dull orange tunic adored with various ceremonial pieces of armour, his nose straight and pointed and his dark hair cut short in an undistinguished style. But his eyes weren’t Roaman at all. Absent was the vulgar disdain of the soldiers. The boy was studying him – not sizing him up, or analysing his weaknesses as Ife had just done to his town, but with an open neutrality. An admiration. If this was a device of some sort by the Roamans, he had underestimated them. Of all the receptions he had braced for, honest impartiality was so unexpected that he was wrong-footed, a most unfamiliar sensation. He felt his body tingle with a heady combination of excitement and danger. Perhaps this diplomatic mission would not be as much of a formality as he had anticipated. Odd Otibryal Juctor Qualens Otibryal resisted the urge to fidget against the uncomfortable formal wear as the Samyrtian galley jammed itself into the harbour, the long eyes along its prow staring him down all the way, like the man on its deck that he knew to be Ife Tusk. Even if he had not read every story of the visitor’s exploits and those of his father, if he had not pestered every Naechisian, Samyrtian and Crylaltian merchant, mercenary and musician on Roam and the port towns it passed by for the most insignificant details about the man, he had no doubt that he would have been in doubt looking at the man now. His skin was dark, punctuated by large white eyes holding unexpected green irises, not the black eyes of the nearly purple-skinned Pricians slaves or Mughannean princes that one saw occasionally on Roam. He wore a full beard, black and tightly curled, the same even length as his hair except for where it gave way to patchiness on his unshaved neck. He wore a simple white tunic, pulled taut over his imposing shoulders, which seemed to Otibryal as if the ambitious muscles of the Naechisian’s back were crawling up and over to his chest. Apart from the man’s assured demeanour, the only concession to his status was a short, blood-red cape over his shoulders, held in place at his left shoulder by a severed lion’s paw. There was no mistaking the son of Osa Tusk, the black wolf of Crylalt – Ife’s older brother Oba, tamed in a Roaman toga, bore only a superficial resemblance to either of them. He had an air about him, or an aura, that Otibryal couldn’t define, but desperately needed to understand; he was sure now that he had made the right decision to come here, but not sure that he could maintain his own composure. It was too late now to back out. Rather than leap off the front of the galley like the heroes had on the beaches beneath Achaegis, Tusk waited for the sailors to secure the ship with ropes and affix a gangplank that he might descend to the dock at a measured pace. His eyes swept from side to side as if expecting an ambush. “General Tusk,” said Otibryal in Issycrian, projecting all the confidence he could muster, “welcome to Scalify. My name is Otibryal Juctor Qualens. I have been instructed to escort you to Roam. I trust you had a pleasant crossing?” Tusk’s eyes studied his face; they were curiously watery and restless, as if assessing each feature of Otibryal’s face in turn. After a moment, the general’s suspicion gave way to a disarming, lop-sided smile. “The Issycrians claim that the sea-god has two faces,” he said in Roaman, his voice round and deep. Haethriton, Otibryal, knew they called him, though he did not interject. “But I only ever to seem to encounter the one. At least he also spits the spray to clean my tunics before I arrive at important diplomatic events.” “If you are inferring offence from the limited size of the welcome party –” Tusk held up a hand, shaking his head apologetically. Otibryal stopped speaking immediately. “Not at all, Otibryal was it?” Otibryal nodded dumbly. “I’m not a diplomat, or a prince. I’m a soldier, a general, as you say. I don’t need to see your legions parading around in my honour, and I certainly don’t need to remember any more of your Roaman names than I absolutely have to. A little bit more simplicity, and a lot less pageantry would yield great returns for relations between our peoples, in my opinion. And please, speak Roaman; I need to practice.” “Very well, General,” Otibryal said, quite relieved, though he found his native Roaman uglier than the more elegant Issycrian. “I’ve cursed myself to enduring a lot of pageantry on Roam now, haven’t I?” sighed Tusk, clapping a strong hand on Otibryal’s shoulder with a wry smile. “Endless plays, and speeches. And plays that are really just speeches, and how we have so much more than divides us.” “No doubt,” Otibryal said, unable to resist mirroring the bigger man’s smile. “Do you have an entourage, or much luggage?” “Not at all,” Tusk turned back to the ship, unclasping Otibryal’s shoulder. “Simplicity, remember? Just me, my bag and my sword.” Otibryal was surprised, despite the man’s reputation for austerity. He was about to – had already, really – enter a potentially hostile environment, which had killed his defenceless father. Surely the general couldn’t be that foolhardy? “Your sword won’t be allowed on Roam, of course,” Otibryal called to Tusk as the Naechisian began to head up the gangplank again. “No blades are.” “Of course,” Tusk said back over his shoulder. “I imagine that makes it a tremendously safe place.” Otibryal waited a minute or two for Tusk to sling his bag over his shoulder, and say farewell to the crew of the Samyrtian ship which had brought him here. He glanced around the dock for signs of anything out of the ordinary, but was satisfied that everything was proceeding as planned. Tusk tramped down the gangplank again, his swordbelt slung low across his waist. Otibryal led him along the quayside through the stalls of silver fish whose stench turned his stomach. He watched his quiet guest as they went, noting his roving eyes stripping the world of as much as they could. Otibryal wondered what else he might have in common with the older man, and what he might learn from him. “The coast road is gentler,” Otibryal said, waiting to be sure Tusk was listening before continuing, “but takes longer.” “What’s the snag?” Tusk asked good-naturedly. “The cliff past is faster, but you’ll have to mount a donkey.” “Those donkeys, presumably,” Tusk nodded towards the donkeys with which Otibryal had descended to Gaegny, tied up to an olive tree at the edge of the town square. “You clearly didn’t expect me to refuse.” “I suppose not,” Otibryal said, unhitching them. Tusk spread the load of his bag across the back of his animal, running his hand over its flanks affectionately, his clearly informed eye inspecting it for faults or features that Otibryal was completely blind to. Otibryal tried to mount his while Tusk was distracted, but didn’t quite manage it; by the time he was on, Tusk was already mounted and regarding him quizzically. They began to clop up the main, paved street towards the cliffs. Cats watched from lazy rooftops; purple flowers spilled from balconies with names Otibryal didn’t know. “How old are you?” Tusk asked. Otibryal didn’t quite quell the flash of irritation at the question before it crossed his face. Everybody was obsessed with age; he had hoped that things, or people, might be different elsewhere. “I’ll be one-and-twenty by the Chaeledon Well,” he said, before realising that was quite a Roamanocentric explanation, what with their eccentric, competing bestial and lunar calendars. “Within two lunar months.” “Is that so?” Tusk either didn’t see the point in masking his surprise, or expend much energy doing so. Perhaps he was doing arithmetic in his head. “You thought I was just a boy,” Otibryal said, looking up at the cliff face above them. “I still do,” Tusk said flatly. He certainly wasn’t a diplomat. “When you were my age, you had already commanded your father’s army,” Otibryal protested. Tusk’s jaw set against the fact. Otibryal felt himself tense reflexively – he hadn’t considered that he might be in danger himself, alone with the renowned warrior. But he wasn’t really in danger, just a little anxious. “I commanded my army, yes,” Tusk nodded, his temple twitching as he chewed out the tension Otibryal had unintentionally drawn into their conversation. “My father was killed when I was sixteen, having lost his army when I was fourteen. You were probably still suckling, so I don’t imagine you remember. Have you led an army, Otibryal?” “No,” Otibryal said, swallowing. They were approaching the end of the road. In his defence, very few living Roamans had, and even fewer for a worthy cause. “Have you ever held a rank?” “No.” “Have you ever swung a sword to kill a man, knowing that if you do not, his sword will kill you?” “No,” Otibryal said quietly. The affinity he had felt with the Naechisian seemed unspooled. “I’m afraid,” Tusk said, with a sympathetic yet patronising smile, “that you are very much still a boy. I don’t expect there are many men to be found on Roam at all. There are certainly few enough in Naechis.” “If violence is all that you value,” Otibryal said sourly. Perhaps this had been a bad idea after all. The base of the cliff path was crowded by goatherds and cockle-women, their impossibly large back-baskets strapped across the bald spots on their foreheads as they prepared for the climb. Recognising Otibryal’s family colours, or perhaps cowed by Tusk’s commanding presence, they gave way, the goatherds tutting and whistling their flocks into the scratchy undergrowth and crags verging the switchback path. “I had thought Naechis less bloodthirsty than Roam.” “I don’t speak for Naechis,” Tusk said sternly. The donkeys picked their way up the mountainside in single file. Otibryal glanced back at the general, who was running his eyes along the streets and quays of Gaegny as it dropped away beneath them. Otibryal had a thousand questions to ask this man, but now couldn’t think of a single one which did not risk irritating him. He felt his chest tighten. Cicadas sang tirelessly in the oppressive heat reflecting off the cliff-faces. “You have three names,” Tusk said, knocking Otibryal out of his internal spiral. “I’ve had this explained to me a half dozen times, but perhaps it will make more sense coming from a Roaman, particularly a Familial such as yourself.” “I actually have four names,” Otibryal admitted. “The simple rule of thumb is that the more names a Roaman has, the more prestigious he is, and the more names you use to address them, the more formal you are being.” “You’ve made is sound simple,” Tusk said, smiling as his donkey planted his front hoof in a patch of pebbles, dislodging several harmlessly. “Now you’ll make it as complicated as it actually is, Otibryal Juctor Qualens Something.” “Something Otibryal Juctor Qualens,” he corrected. “My given name is Otibryal.” “Does everyone call you that?” Tusk asked. “It seems a mouthful.” “My close relatives call me Oti, but that’s quite intimate,” Otibryal said. “Very well,” Tusk nodded. “Please let me know when we’re intimate enough to relieve my tongue. Juctor is your family name, like mine is Tusk?” “Exactly,” Otibryal said. “My father is a Juctor, as was his father, back until the first of five Familials who supposedly helped Semural found Roam, and even more supposedly were descended from their respective gods: Juctor, Candoam, Voriel, Sarevir and Qualens.” “Semural wasn’t descended from a god himself?” frowned Tusk, leaning forward to aid his mount’s ascent. “There are different myths,” Otibryal shrugged. “Who knows what, if any of it, is true? I find it hard to believe that there was ever a Semural, or a Mauchule, or an evil king Resteral.” “You find it hard to conceive of an evil king?” Tusk scoffed. “I might be young – not yet a man by some definitions – but I’ve never met a virgin “swollen by the sun” who gave birth to twins,” Otibryal continued. “Perhaps not,” mused Tusk, “but the Samyrtians have tales of virgin births, as do the Mederyans. And the Issycrian god of light, Ascolon, was supposed to birth himself from the darkness of Achaegon, reigning for the first day until Achaegon births himself for the first night.” “Please tell me that you don’t believe any of that superstitious nonsense, General,” Otibryal said, looking back at the man, his imposing frame almost absurd perched atop the donkey. “Believing it or not isn’t the point” Tusk replied, picking his words carefully. “Every culture has its own myths, and they all share some themes. If you understand a people’s myths, you stand a far greater chance of understanding their minds.” “And a greater chance of outwitting them,” Otibryal said. “And defeating them.” “If that is your desire,” Tusk said indifferently. “Just don’t dismiss them as superstitious nonsense, when they give you a sense of guilts and fears – particularly your own culture’s myths. If you want to make a difference in this world, which I sense you do, you’re going to have to engage with the world as it is. Myths are your greatest weapon for doing that, and the greatest difference you can make is to create your own myths – or, more likely, adapt old myths to your purposes.” “Is that why you’re here?” Otibryal asked. He knew that he was losing the authority or distance he was supposed to be maintaining, but he found Tusk simply fascinating. “To mould new myths?” “I’m here because I was invited,” Tusk smiled, “by the Senate and People of Roam, and by the Waterfall Council of Naechis, and by your father.” Otibryal tensed up, his hands nearly jerking the reins up. Tusk was evidently please by the reaction. “Your father is Coughy Pagnal Juctor, Consul of the Roaman Republic and Patriarch of Juctor, correct?” he asked. Otibryal nodded slowly. “I suspected from the off,” Tusk replied to the unvoiced question, “from your attire, partly. Your father doesn’t have a reputation as a fool, so wouldn’t send an unranked nobody as the lone reception for a potentially dangerous dignitary unless he trusted them implicitly. The real question is why you wouldn’t tell me, but I think that our conversation has given me enough clues to mount a reasonable charge at the answer.” Otibryal realised that he should probably say something, though he wasn’t sure if he could trust his voice to do so. “And that is?” he managed. “You are ashamed of Roam,” Tusk said, “and quite possibly your father.” “Something like that,” Otibryal said. He wasn’t foolish enough to give Tusk more than he had taken already. The Naechisian smiled, presumably smug at hitting so close to the mark as he had. He did not seem a man around whom one could lower one’s guard, which Otibryal thought would be tiring after a while, though he could not resist the urge to get behind Tusk’s guard in turn. The donkeys had reached the promontory upon which sat the temple of Voriel safeguarding Gaegny and those sailing out from under the shadow of its smoke towards the horizon to the west. Otibryal returned the hails of the toga clad attendants overseeing it with their rattles and eerie harmonies, and the nods of the goatherds resting in the shade of the humble trees lining its approach. The cicadas were less confident in their aimless song here, perhaps thwarted by the fronts of smoke which sometimes rolled along the outcrop and broke against the cliffs. The path continued steeply up the other side from them; not far above the round-leaved thorny trees of the coasts and parched lowlands gave way in an unnaturally even line to stalwart pines, the ground beneath them calf-high with discarded needles and cones. And then, eventually, the top. “You have a second father?” Tusk asked when his curiosity at the landscape and temple was surpassed again by that at Otibryal’s lineage and Roam. “A Qualens?” “I did,” Otibryal said. “My half-father, Young Donimal Qualens-Donimal Juctor. He died when I was ten.” “My condolences,” Tusk bowed his head respectfully, but kept his green eyes looking straight into Otibryal’s. He wondered whether this was a Naechisian custom or a quirk of the general’s. “It’s fine. Thank you,” Otibryal said. “He was seven-and-sixty, five-and-thirty years older than my father.” “Was he a good man?” “It’s difficult to say,” Otibryal said honestly. “He was kind, but we were never really close, and I was very young.” “Are half-fathers not close to their…” Tusk trailed off. “Half-sons?” Otibryal finished for him. “It really depends. All families are different.” Tusk hummed an appreciative sound. “Some treat their half-children as their own, while others live up to only the strict letter of the law.” “And what is the law, exactly?” Tusk asked. “This is becoming complicated again.” “Would you prefer to hear it in myth form?” Otibryal offered. “As long as you aren’t worried that I will use it to outwit and defeat you,” Tusk smiled, gesturing for Otibryal to narrate. “Let’s see,” Otibryal peered into the stories he had been told as a boy. “It’s known as the Adesican Marriages. In the decade after the foundation of Roam, after Semural had killed his twin Mauchule in self-defence and exiled his scheming wife Restaras, who had pitted them against one another, and the Sun Vent had closed up, shamed by the quantity of Semural’s tears, Roam-Beast began to threaten confrontation with Adesican-Beast, native to the Adesican Well just a few miles from the Roaman Well.” Otibryal paused as he half-ducked under and half-brushed aside a low branch protruding onto the path. “As was the way of things back then, conflict between the World-Beasts ensured conflict between peoples, and so the men of Roam and Adesican raided each other’s territory with escalating savagery. Roam had by this point developed the Underbelly, populated by rough types: exiles, refugees from across Scalify, criminals and runaway slaves. Rather than scorn these unfortunates in his shadow, Semural embraced them, promoting them into his army.” “Your foundation myths lionise lowlifes?” Tusk asked, surprised. “That’s somewhat unusual.” “Perhaps,” Otibryal agreed, never having really considered it before. “I suppose it helped to differentiate Roam from its rivals? This was five hundred years ago, but our neighbours were considerably older, and in the wider world, like noble Issycria, most of history had already happened.” “Roam also has a habit of absorbing its enemies, rather than exterminating them,” Tusk noted. “It is a fascinating approach, when it works.” “When it works, indeed,” echoed Otibryal, assuming that Tusk was referring to the catastrophic Provincial War which had torn the Republic apart at the height of the war in Crylalt, almost bringing to defeat to Roam when it had been on the cusp of victory, paving the way for the rise of Ife’s father and the renewal of the Naechisian war effort. “In this case, it did, or at least it is said to have: Semural leads his swollen army into battle against the Adesican King Anylyal as the World-Beasts clash above them, as these clashes always seem to happen in epics. Roam-Beast delivers Adesican-Beast a fatal blow, and the Roamans, with their longer battle line, envelop the hopeless Adesicans. Semural is a just man, but cannot afford to let the Adesicans surrender, as he had promised the men of the Underbelly wives in return for their service and women were in short supply even without living Adesican husbands. With a heavy heart, he lifts his knife to execute Anylyal when Aure, the Adesican Queen, throws herself in front of her husband, begging for his life. While Semural holds the blade aloft, day turns to night, and Semural recognises the sign from his father, the Sun, and the dedication, resilience and heart-rending beauty of Aure pleading mercy. Sometimes storytellers say that he felt his heart beat for the first time since his brother had died at his hand.” Tusk smiled at the image, a more genuine and deeper-rooted smile than he had previously worn. He seemed quite engrossed in Otibryal’s telling, but something twinged in Oti’s mind about this smile. “So, Semural drops the knife and lifts Anylyal to his feet, announcing to his army, and that of Anylyal, that the will of Roam is not to slaughter their captives like animals, but marry their wives and live side by side with them as men, with sacred bonds between the two husbands of a wife as strong as those between kin, and their sons of two families. Furthermore, Semural makes Anylyal his first shield-bearing Companion, the second class of Roaman citizens behind the Familials who had first settled the city.” “It’s certainly an unusual solution to the problem,” Tusk said, mulling over the ramifications. “How do the children know who their father is?” “We don’t think of fatherhood that way?” Otibryal said. “Roamans don’t, or you don’t?” asked Tusk, which offended Otibryal more than he would have anticipated. “Your father is whoever is legally due to be so before your birth,” Otibryal explained. “The precedence of the husbands due to their ancestral prestige, personal achievements and numbers of living sons is negotiated before a marriage is agreed.” “Do you have siblings?” Tusk asked. “I do,” Otibryal nodded. “Thirteen in total. Twelve who reached adulthood. Eleven living.” “Thirteen?” balked Tusk. “I though having three brothers was torture enough.” “It’s not that bad,” Otibryal assured him. “Most of them are quite distant siblings.” “Distant siblings?” Tusk shook his head in amazement. “My oldest brother was Tantal Qualens-Donimal Voriel. He was the son of my half-father and another man and wife, so my water-brother, the most distant sort of sibling. He died as an Officer in the Crylaltian War, years before I was born, at the Battle of the Sycadine Stacks. I have a three-and-forty-year-old water-sister, Enny Qualens, who is older than my father, and another water-brother Bucktooth Donimal Qualens-Donimal, who was a Marshal of Roam a couple of years ago, and must be nearly forty? Then there are my milk-sisters, with whom I share a mother: Treacy, Amas and Enny Candoam, who are all in their mid-to-late twenties.” “Do women only have two names?” asked Tusk. “Er, yes,” said Otibryal. “They only have one family name (that of their father), but they can also have a patronymic civic name to differentiate them from other living women on Roam with the same name: for instance, Amas and Enny are officially named Devisal’s Amas and Devisal’s Enny Candoam after Devisal Candoam, the previous husband of my mother – Pronimal’s Cortisy Juctor – and my half-father, Young Donimal. He was a Consul during the war, I think.” “So your mother’s father was named Pronimal Juctor?” Tusk half-surmised. “Yes,” Otibryal said. The sun glittered beautifully over his shoulder, now far enough down to be veiled by a slight haze. He remembered when his mother had told him that the light on the sea only pointed towards special people and smiled. “Jumpy Pronimal Juctor Candoam. My only living grandparent, for better or worse.” “What makes him jumpy?” Tusk asked. “Everything,” Otibryal sighed. “He’s a bitter and insecure old man.” “But he was named that officially?” “Yes. Civic names help to identify particular citizens, although they can also be inherited. When a Roaman comes of age, the Senate has to confirm then in the electoral rolls kept by the Sentinels. If there is a name clash, both citizens are assigned a civic name, which is nearly always disparaging by tradition to encourage humility amongst Roamans. Even civic names bestowed upon Heroes at a Triumph emphasise their cruelty or savagery, like Pillage Otibryal Voriel-Otibryal Qualens or Vicious Ormanal Juctor-Ormanal Panth. The more insulting the name, the more impressive the individual, so he his pride has to be dragged down further.” “Those men have five names,” frowned Tusk. “Like your half-father did.” “Forgive me, yes,” said Otibryal. “Men who receive a Triumph for great victories are granted their own branches of the family, which carries their name on through history.” “Your half-father was a Triumphant Hero?” “No, but his father was Toothless Donimal Qualens-Donimal Sarevir, who was the Triumphant Hero of the war against Inachiron. Young Donimal, my half-father, was Consul in the First Civil War, however, and served as Governor of both Oscumy and Scrutany in his life.” “I see,” said Tusk, digesting. “You didn’t tell me your civic name, if you have one.” “No,” Otibryal sighed. “I didn’t.” “Is it that bad?” “It’s more that it’s not that bad at all,” he said wearily. An afterthought. “Odd.” “It’s odd?” “Odd Otibryal Juctor Qualens.” “Odd Otibryal.” “Correct.” “Who is the other citizen with whom you share a name?” “Nobody, really. He was a Senator named Edgy Otibryal Juctor when I came of age. He died a couple of years ago, but the name sticks.” “You still have half a dozen siblings you haven’t mentioned,” said Tusk, changing the subject most welcomely. “You’re right. I have a true, or full, brother and sister a couple of years older than me. We share our mother and father, as well as our half-father though that isn’t legally required for full sibling status.” “Their names?” “Flashy Donimal Juctor Qualens, the Scion of Juctor and Officer of the Republic, and Pagnal’s Cortisy Juctor.” “Flashy doesn’t seem too disparaging, if I’m translating it correctly?” “It’s sort of a bad joke at his expense. The Senate like to amuse themselves. He is somewhat proud, and proud of being proud, but also prone to flashes of rash action. Hence Flashy. I’m still not sure he gets it.” “Who else? Siblings, I mean.” “My god-siblings. Two god-sisters, Donimal’s Cortisy Qualens and Varbas Qualens, both of whom are grown and married to suitable husbands. Then my god-brothers Pagnal Qualens-Donimal Juctor, fifteen, and Pronimal Qualens-Donimal Juctor, ten. They are my father’s legal responsibility since the death of their father – my half-father.” “And they share your father and mother?” “We all have the same three parents, but their father is my half-father and my half-father is their father.” “Legally?” the idea seemed to be physically hurting Tusk. A craggy-faced citizen coming down the mountain gave Otibryal a salute as he made way for the donkeys, which Otibryal returned half-heartedly. “Legally,” Otibryal confirmed. “But only one of the men is physically your father,” Tusk said, a little angrily. “Naturally. Biologically.” “Of course. We’re still men, but Roaman men. There’s a saying that it takes two fathers to make a Roaman.” “That makes it sound like Roamans have particularly weak seed,” Tusk smirked. “I believe the intended implication is that a Roaman is a man and a half.” “Ah, so my father killed even more men than I thought,” Tusk said, a little distastefully even to Otibryal’s mind. The Naechisian couldn’t help but shake his head. “I find this perverse. Your god-brothers could be your actual brothers, and your real brothers could be half-brothers at best. You’ve destroyed one of the most powerful bonds in all the world, and for what?” “Well, for the stability of doubt,” Otibryal said, repeating a phrase that the historian Young Sural often used, even though he disagreed with the old bigot on almost everything. “The stability,” Tusk squinted, “of doubt.” “Are you entirely confident of the identity of your biological father?” Otibryal asked. Tusk’s eyes hardened several degrees. “Are you insinuating something about my mother?” “Not at all,” Otibryal apologised, remembering who exactly this man was. “I merely meant theoretically. One’s father, not your father. Roaman society preferred to lean into that ambiguity. Besides, you’re acting like I instigated this entire idea,” he said defensively. “I’m just answering your questions.” “Ah,” Tusk smiled suddenly, his green-grey eyes twinkling. “A moon lawyer.” “A moon lawyer? You’ve lost me.” “It’s a term that is used in Naechis, both in government and warfare,” Tusk explained. “I suppose it is the ‘stability of doubt’, in its way. If ever a council is called and there is unanimity in the first vote, then it is immediately annulled and a new vote held to appoint a moon lawyer, who is tasked with disagreeing with the proposed course of action, even though in truth he agrees with it. It is a useful exercise to test the assumptions of an argument – the so-called common-sense blindness that leads to avoidable mistakes.” “And you’re saying that I’m one?” Otibryal asked. “I don’t know what you are, Otibryal,” Tusk said. His eyes were scrutinising Otibryal’s face again in a way that both excited him and made his features twitch. “I’m not sure you do either. I think that Odd might suit you better than you’ll admit.” Otibryal gritted his teeth against Tusk’s judgement, refusing to be defined by a label given to him by embittered strangers when he was just fourteen years old. He would define himself. Their discussion had seen them almost to the top of the cliff. The poor donkeys were tiring, honking slightly with each laboured step. They could rest at the top when they transferred to fresh horses, and then on towards Roam, and however this ended. Category:Chapter Category:Otibryal POV Chapter Category:Ife POV Chapter